NBA Round-Up: Kobe Must Be Pretty Mad

Kobe Bryant was fined $100,000 in April because he called a referee a f*ggot during a game. Joakim Noah called a fan a “f*cking f*ggot” twice during Sunday night’s loss to the Miami Heat and he was fined $50,000. According to CBS Sports, Bryant was fined more for his ignorant shout because it was directed at a league official. The NBA also since made the commercial for the “Think Before You Speak” campaign to spread awareness of the damage that comes with calling someone gay. To recap – Kobe paid $100K for calling a ref the derogatory F-bomb and Noah will pay half that amount for calling a fan the same thing. A fan. The person who pays to see the product. The person who is targeted by the hate speech campaign. Rock solid logic.

Athletes will never stop using words like f*ggot or gay as insults because they just won’t, unless the leagues really start attacking their wallets. But for Noah, I have a better idea – instead of the NBA fining him, the gay community should make him the new face of prejudice. It worked for preserving Rick Santorum’s legacy, so why can’t it be applied here?

More than likely, though, Noah will just cut a check and act like nothing happened. Hopefully he’ll think long and hard about it after his vacation starts next week.

Dallas Mavericks 112, Oklahoma City Thunder 105 OT (Series: 3-1 DAL)

Earlier this month, Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said that Dirk Nowitzki is one of the 10 best NBA players of all-time. Of course Carlisle would say that – he coaches Nowitzki and he’s strapped a saddle to the German’s back for one hell of a playoff run. But is Nowitzki honestly a Top 10 all-time player while having zero NBA championships, one regular season MVP and no major offensive statistics in the all-time Top 10? Of course not. Unfortunately for arguments of logic and semantics, though, Nowitzki is playing like one of the Top 5 players of all-time right now, as evidenced by the Mavericks complete domination of the Thunder last night in the game’s closing minutes.

Down by 15 with less than 5 minutes to go, Nowitzki scored 13 of his 40 points, including two game-tying free throws with 6 seconds remaining in the 4th quarter, to ensure at least one overtime. As for that overtime, you can go ahead and guess what happened when Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook combined for zero points. Durant also had 9 turnovers in the game, which the NBA experts tell me is terrible.

Tonight’s Prediction: Miami over Chicago, Noah will call a fan a derogatory term that offends both the Jewish and Inuits

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Actually, Noah was pretty remorseful about what he said since he grew up in SoHo with a close gay family friend that he called “mom”. He texted his own mother to apologize before he did so on camera, unprompted, immediately following the game (compared to Kobe’s apology after he got caught).

Also, the flip side of this is, why are fans allowed to abuse players just because they paid for a ticket? Shelling out a few grand because you’re some rich asshole in Miami that wears UGGs shouldn’t give you a free pass to hurl insults at a player’s mom, which is what the fan did to Noah.[www.obsessedwithsports.com]

By: CJinPA

05.24.2011 @ 12:15 PM

The fact that the fan was likely a heckling asshole probably had something to do with the smaller fine.

By: Adam

05.24.2011 @ 12:21 PM

Or that Kobe’s salary is 10x Noah’s. Not that either of them will actually pay it. They will both appeal it and it will eventually get lost.

The league should do fines as a percentage of salary, the players would feel it more.